


modah ani l'fanecha

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Judaism, S4M15 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 17:10:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6203842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one trusted her -- she didn't trust herself. She was the one to suggest the chains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	modah ani l'fanecha

She slept chained up now, in case she turned in the night. No more curling into the warmth of Maxine's body, her presence grounding her when she woke from a nightmare where she was still working for Van Ark. No more watching how the tension in Maxine's shoulders drained out and the lines on her face smoothed while she was asleep; no more pretending things were not so bad. Some nights, she would wake up with a wrist rubbed raw or an aching shoulder from tossing and turning.

But she would wake up.

Every time she put the chains on, attached the handcuff and made sure she couldn't slip it off, she had to face the possibility that she wouldn't. 

Before the outbreak, she hadn't really been a practising Jew: lighting Shabbat candles and going to synagogue for the occasional holiday didn't count. The first time she woke up chained up alone, words she hadn't thought about since school came back to her: _Modah ani l'fanecha. I offer thanks to you, ever-living Sovereign, that you have restored my soul to me in mercy. How great is your trust._

No one on Earth trusted her -- she didn't trust herself. She had been the one to suggest the chains. And yet every day she woke up. Every day her soul was restored to her, and she was granted another day with Maxine. So after the apocalypse, lying alone, Paula prayed.

**Author's Note:**

> please talk to me about paula cohen and/or religion after the zombie apocalypse.
> 
> [modeh/modah ani is the traditional prayer one says upon waking]


End file.
